most poetic lyrics

There are so many. Here's just one:

In this world of ordinary people
Extraordinary people
I'm glad there is you

In this world, where many many play at love
but hardly ever stay in love
I'm glad there is you

Please respect copyright - don't reprint entire lyrics without permission. Better to provide a link if they're online. Thanks!

(As you'll note from my signature, I'm a fan of poetic lyrics myself, but I'm also a fan of respecting copyright and fair use. So, reasonable excerpts ok... entire lyrics - check first!)

Yeah, probably a good idea.

I tend to go for the right side of the brain stuff--

We both are lost and alone in the world
walk with me, through the gentle rain.
Don't be afraid, you've got me in this world
and our love will be sweet, very sad, very sweet
like the gentle rain

"The Gentle Rain" Matt Dubey

In case anyone wants to hear it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJGqzudEDDE

In his younger and thinner days, Billy Joel was known for his “pop” appeal and energetic shows. However, very few people gave him enough credit for the poetry of his lyrics.

As he wrote 160,000 songs – people have told me a million times not to exaggerate – I’ll just use the lyrics for two of them as examples.

I’m not sure if “Roberta” is about a prostitute or a friend, but the lyrics are amazing.

Maybe the Joel song that I believe is at least close to his best lyrically is “Good Night Saigon”. This song always seems to make my eyes leak a little.

To friendship,
Michael

“Friends, if that trigger gets pulled, if that dropped bomb falls and you say, “I support the troops”, you’re an accomplice.” – Utah Philips

I find Ra's lyrics to be rather poetic. One song that comes to mind is Undertaken off of Duality.

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Undertaken-lyrics-Ra/7D60B97CAF51D5A54825702E00130F81

Leonard Cohen.

Hallelujah, Joan of Arc, Everybody Knows, If It Be Your Will...can't say I love it when he sings, but the music itself is beautiful and the lyrics are poetry.

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

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"All these burning hearts in hell..." Dang.

MichaelBN said:

In his younger and thinner days, Billy Joel was known for his “pop” appeal and energetic shows. However, very few people gave him enough credit for the poetry of his lyrics.

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100% agree! He's one of my all-time favorite artists in part because of his ability to tell a story in a great song. (Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, Allentown, Downeaster Alexa...for starters!)

Ash, I haven’t been back here in a while. In fact, I was beginning to come here on a regular basis but other stuff sort of tied me up for a while.

I once told a friend that I thought that Billy Joel was one of the best poets among pop artists and he laughed at me. If one knows anything about poetry, however, they’d see what you and I see.



To friendship,
Michael

“He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it - namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain. - Mark Twain

World Conditions and Action Items

Nearly everything written by Bob Dylan, imo, works as poetry.

I second Leonard Cohen, as well as Bob Dylan. I think the earlier songwriters Lieber and Stoller were quite brilliant too.

Another song I'd add would be Strange Fruit, about lynching, which was originally a poem.

R.E.M. were another favourite of mine and I'd first gotten into them when they were still fairly obscure. Especially Fall on Me from Life's Rich Pageant.

This is the Day by The The, Seven Seas by Echo and The Bunnymen... Okay, I'll stop dating myself now.

You cannot petition the lord with prayer!
- J. Morrison, "Soft Parade"

One of my favorites from Sting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmDQFWNjHpA&list=RDEmDQFWNjHpA

Ketzel said:

Nearly everything written by Bob Dylan, imo, works as poetry.

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Notably:

Mr. Tambourine Man
Desolation Row
Memphis Blues Again
Visions of Johanna

And you can add quite a lot of Neil Young's work to this list, too.

caw

Technicolor Phase by Owl City and Car Radio by 21 Pilots come to mind.

I find a lot of Owl City and 21 Pilots' lyrics poetic.

Paul Simon writes some good stuff along those lines. You can take nearly anything off Graceland and call it poetry. That record is a masterpiece.
My particular favorite from the title track:

She comes back to tell me she's gone
As if I didn't know that
As if I didn't know my own bed
As if I never noticed
The way she brushed the hair from her forehead


His use of imagery is astounding in its simplicity.

You all to go and listen to Astral Weeks, by Van Morrison. One of the most poetic singers ever. Of course the man in avatar.

If I ventured in the slipstream
Between the viaducts of your dreams
Where the mobile steel rims crack
And the ditch and the backroads stop
Could you find me
Would you kiss my eyes
And lay me down
In silence easy
To be born again

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And I will stroll the merry way
And jump the hedges first
And I will drink the clear
Clean water for to quench my thirst
And I shall watch the ferry-boats
And they'll get high
On a bluer ocean
Against tomorrow's sky
And I will never grow so old again
And I will walk and talk
In gardens all wet with rain

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etc.

Anything by The Boy Least Likely To. My favourites are Balloon on a Broken String, I Box up all the Butterflies

I see Spiders

I've always found quite a lot of Neil Peart's lyrics with Rush to be quite poetic at time:

"And if the music stops
There's only the sound of the rain
All the hope and glory
All the sacrifice in vain
If love remains
Though everything is lost
We will pay the price,
But we will not count the cost"

(Bravado)

"And the men who hold high places
Must be the ones who start
To mould a new reality
Closer to the heart."

(Closer to the Heart)

"If we're so much the same like I always hear
Why such different fortunes and fates
Some of us live in a cloud of fear
Some live behind iron gates."

(The Larger Bowl)

"I strip away the old debris that hides the shining car
A brilliant red Barchetta from a better vanished time
Fire up the willing engine responding with a roar
Tyres spitting gravel I commit my weekly crime."

(Red Barchetta)

"Though his mind is not for rent
To any God or government
Always hopeful yet discontent
he knows changes aren't permanent
But change is"

(Tom Sawyer)

These are just a few examples from a career that has lasted for 40 years.

Honestly? Almost anything by Poets of the Fall can be seen as poetry, in my opinion.

"The Immoral Wasteland" by Holy Terror. Lyrics below video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk6IO6APTIE

I consider anything by Dry the River to be poetry - but especially the song Bible Belt. It's so beautifully crafted, and sung with such perfect intensity.

"You were a low moon, steady with wintry calm.
Somewhere inside the fire of your youth went dark."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuco2TLDeWQ

Lyrics

"Sleep" by Poets of the Fall.

Sleep, sugar, let your dreams flood in
Like waves of sweet fire, you're safe within
Sleep, sweetie, let your floods come rushing in
And carry you over to a new morning ​

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I love the poetic lyrics of Leonard Cohen and Death Cab For Cutie, but my most recent find of very beautiful lyrics has to be from Gregory Alan Isakov. His songs bring tears to my eyes.